Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1993, Page 83

BATS IN THE FAROE ISLANDS
Europe (Stebbings and Griffith, 1986), but
is very common in northeast Zealand, Den-
mark (Baagøe, 1986) and common in
southern Sweden (Ahlen, 1986).
Numerous vagrants have been found far
from their normal range (Baagøe, in press;
Rydell and Baagøe, in press) including re-
cords from the south and central parts of
England, three from Shetland and one from
a North Sea oil rig (Racey, 1991). It is cer-
tainly a long distance flier and is consider-
ed a migratory species (Strelkov, 1969;
Stebbings, 1988; Racey, 1991). Longestre-
corded flights of ringed individuals are
360, 800, and 850 km (Strelkov, 1969).
However, frequent winter occurrence in
Scandinavia and parts of continental Eu-
rope suggests that at least some popula-
tions, or parts of them, are rather stationary
(Baagøe, 1986; Cerveny and Biirger, 1990;
Rydell and Baagøe, in press).
Conclusion
Of the 30 European bat species, only 3 have
been found in the Faroe Islands. All three
species are among the 5-6 European speci-
es considered to be migratory and long dis-
tance fliers (Stebbings, 1988). The long
oceanic gap between the Faroe Islands and
mainlands with bat populations has had a
filter effect on bat dispersal to the islands.
If the bats had dispersed passively by
human aid (ships) through anthropochore
dispersal (Udvardy, 1969), and since ships
reach the Faroe Islands from nearly all
parts of Europe, almost any of the Europe-
an bat species could have been expected -
only depending on their abundance and be-
haviour in the port of embarkation. There-
fore the 6 identified bats most likely flew
all or most of the way themselves; Leisler’s
bat probably came from Ireland or Britain,
the particoloured bat perhaps from Norway
or Denmark, and the Nathusius’s pipistrel-
les from nearly anywhere on the Continent,
perhaps via Great Britain or Norway.
Acknowledgements
We wish to express our thanks to Kate Sanderson for
proofreading and to Marianna Debes Dahl for transla-
tion of the abstract to Faroese. Also a thank to J.-K.
Jensen for sampling material.
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